great image..just love the feeling..
my only crit's will be also on the trashes on the sidewalk and the trees...maybe you put some lights linked to the trashes to create some contact shadow..but the shadows under the trashes are too strong and these trashes looks like there are not really on the ground (only the one on the left)..but it is minor details...
again...

seven days---- only two lights---- now lookat thaat, you can still achive unbelievable results by only using talent, and not depending from hi-end equipment and sophisticated plug-ins...
This is AWESOME!

Modelling wise, I do have some crits:
There are far too many unnecesary polygons in most objects and some polygons missing in spots where you actually need them. For instance in the wires hanging down from the buildings and the cylinder railways. The sidewalk stones uneveness could be done with a displacement map or even just a bumpmap.

Some suggestions overall:
The building in the back comes from 3dcafe or somewhere, I wouldnt use it but model a new one. The sidewalk bricks should be placed differently, like this heavy rainfall would make the sidewalk drift and break up *trust me I know That winding stairway is way too fragile to support a grownup. Actually I think that the entire staircase is dowloaded from a modelsite or comes straight from Max6 StudioVIZ object database. Its not a problem using them off course , but Id try and make an effort and change them or at least think about how to use them. For instance make the staircase and railings more sturdy cause you are going to use it outside and it goes up 3 stories high. Like this the drainpipe looks like it can support more weight

I do like the overall idea of the picture but Im sure you could have made the same picture with displacement maps and smart texturing instead of the 8 days render it now takes. My 2 cts, keep it up!

Great Work!!
The wet pavment looks amazing, but I have to agree with peanut about the sidewalk and trash. But a very good image. Makes me feel bad about the crap I make. But still Congratz on getting front page.

This is a great render! I aways say that scanline rendering is the main rendering process that can be used for most 3d renders.

But 7 days? Did you use high resolution textures and 3d models even in scene areas that are hidden from the camera? Did you use lighting arrays or fake GI array lights? If so did you limit your lighting to areas that would actually be seen by the camera?

The beauty of scanline renders is in the speed that you get at render time over raytracing.

If you used selective raytracing for your reflections did you use reflection maps? You can set your reflections to reflect nothing but appear like they are reflecting objects from your scene. I don’t know but 7 days seams a bit of a long time for a scanline render of a still scene like this.

In any case render time issues aside, I hope that this will encourage 3d artist to embrace their scanline rendering engines. Long live the scanline render! Hehehe. Yeah!

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